Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Turkish Reporter Admits Making Up Jared Kushner Quote Praising Erdogan

(JTA) — A Turkish reporter admitted that he fabricated a quote by Jared Kushner in which President Trump’s son-in-law and adviser reportedly said Turkish President Recep Erdogan “is making Turkey great again like [the] U.S. We watch his efforts with appreciation.”

Yavuz Atalay, a reporter for the newspaper AKSAM, told The Daily Caller Thursday that he made up the quote.

In a private Twitter exchange with The Daily Caller, Atalay said he spoke with Kushner for less than two minutes.

“He did not say that,” Atalay wrote of the quote in question. “I asked him, ‘Do you think, Erdogan is making Turkey great again, like Trump?’ and he only said, ‘Yeah, I think so.’”

The White House did not respond to a follow-up question about the interview. A selfie with Kushner and the reporter accompanies the article.

Atalay has a history of exaggerating the Trump administration’s view of Erdogan and the Turkish government, according to The Daily Caller.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.